Self-driving trucks could begin delivering goods from Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, to other Dutch cities within five years; the Netherlands reviewing traffic laws to make large-scale testing of driverless trucks possible on public roads
Cindy Allen
AMSTERDAM
,
June 16, 2014
(Thomson Reuters Corp.)
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* Initial tests on closed track, then on public roads
* Self-driving vehicles said to be safer, more efficient * Plan comes after Google project for self-driving cars Self-driving trucks could begin delivering goods from Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, to other Dutch cities within five years under a plan by a group of logistics and technology companies unveiled on Monday. The Netherlands is reviewing traffic laws to make large-scale testing of the technology possible on public roads, Infrastructure and Environment Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen wrote to parliament in a letter outlining the plan. Initial testing would start on computer simulations and the trucks will be tested on a closed track before ultimately driving out on public roads, her letter said. The goal is to make the technology commercially available within five years, according to one participant. The Dutch proposal comes a month after Google Inc. said it was developing two-passenger, self-driving cars and hopes to have built 200 of the vehicles with two years. The Netherlands, a densely populated country, has a highly advanced infrastructure and is home to Europe's fourth largest airport, while Rotterdam port is a major European logistics hub. "We really want to seek out international partners to see what we can do in this field," said Marianne Wuite, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment. "There are countless benefits. Self-driving cars need less space and therefore use asphalt more efficiently, they avert traffic jams and reduce accidents. They are also more environmentally friendly." The application was submitted by a consortium including the industry group Transport and Logistics Netherlands, DAF Trucks, Rotterdam Port and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, or TNO. No financial details were made available. "We want to do the first demonstrations in the beginning of next year and roll out the trial in a controlled environment as soon as possible," said Bastiaan Krosse, a spokesman for TNO. The road trial, involving two full-sized lorries driving in what is called a "platoon," could happen in the Rotterdam Port, or on or at the A270, a motorway with advanced infrastructure in the southern Netherlands, he said. "The goal is to develop a reliable system over the next five years," Krosse added. Similar experiments are underway in other European countries "but what makes this unique is that no other project has a hard target of bringing this to market within five years, with the backing of the government," he said. A detailed proposal of where and how the trials will take place will be submitted to parliament after the summer, Schultz van Haegen wrote. (Reporting By Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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